France on fire: Firefighters battle blaze near Bordeaux for the third day

Reinforcements and fresh firefighting crews from all over France are arriving in the vicinity of Bordeaux, in southwestern France, where a forest fire has been raging for three days, destroying an area of 600 hectares, reports the Patria News Agency.

Three hundred firefighters have arrived from other parts of the country to join 380 exhausted colleagues from the Gironde department and its surroundings. The fire is "very worrying because it is spreading," Simon Bertoux, a representative of the authorities in Gironde, told reporters.

-The fire is worrying because, although the wind has stopped, the fire releases enough energy and creates its own wind, said Deputy Fire Chief, Colonel Dominique Mathieu.

Several houses in the Pessac, Toctoucau districts were evacuated on Saturday evening. On Friday evening, 120 families had already been evacuated in Saint-Jean-d'Illac and Pessac. Authorities announced that "no houses or properties have been damaged so far" in the fire that broke out on Friday afternoon in St. Jean d'Illac, about twenty kilometers from Bordeaux.